Current mixing and dispensing practices for dental materials, such as those for restoration and cementation, involve notable waste of these usually expensive materials. Mixing and dispensing techniques often utilize substantially more of the materials than are actually required for a dental procedure. In many situations, an assistant dispenses the materials onto a mixing pad, such as a piece of wax paper, and mixes them by hand there. In these situations, the assistant rather crudely estimates needed amounts of materials, and sometimes mixes too much and sometimes too little. This technique has the further disadvantage of introducing gross amounts of ambient air into the materials, thus tending adversely to affect their physical properties.
Moreover, currently available syringes and similar implements for mixing and dispensing dental materials typically feature a tip into which gross amounts of dental materials are forced and convoluted. Thus, the implements have disadvantage in that they tend to involve and to deliver an overly large bolus of materials and, again, waste expensive materials.